Found, Not Lost
by inspirationassaulted
Summary: HPDM; Harry took a wrong turn out of Borgin and Burke's the summer before his second year and got lost in Knockturn Alley. Years later, Draco Malfoy stumbles across a green-eyed rent boy on a London street corner. Who is he, and how did he get there? Will Harry Potter ever return to the world at large? Set in a world where Harry defeated Voldemort completely in his first year.
1. Prologue

Harry wandered out of Borgin and Burke's after the Malfoys had gone, clutching his broken glasses to his face. This was definitely not Diagon Alley, he realised, staring at all the dirty buildings and shadowy corners. A hag passed by, hawking what looked to be human fingernails on a tray.

"Not lost, are you dearie?" she asked, sickly sweet. Harry stammered something by way of an excuse as he turned and ran.

He tripped around a corner and tumbled into a little dead end alley, skidded on his side. A shadowy figure stirred at the far end.

"Hey, you alright?" it asked, the voice male. "Not in trouble, are you?"

"N-no," Harry stuttered, "I'm just l-lost."

"Circe, you sound young, kid," the man muttered, rising. He came toward Harry, carefully picking his way across the cobblestones with one hand on the wall. As he came into better light, Harry could see that he was young, probably in his late teens, and his eyes were covered over with a milky film. "How old are you?"

"Twelve," Harry replied, _almost_ proudly and a little bit frightened. He got the feeling it wasn't such a good thing to be so young here.

"Too young," the man muttered to himself. "You shouldn't be around here, kid. Where are your parents?"

"Dead," Harry said automatically, staring at the man's eyes. "I'm sorry, but are you…blind?" he asked tentatively, afraid of the man's reaction to his boldness.

The man just grinned. "Yeah, had a potions accident when I was in school. There isn't much use in a blind wizard." He reached out a hand, searching a bit before he found Harry's shoulder. "Listen kid, you really shouldn't be in a place like this. Won't your family come looking for you? Or whoever you live with?"

Harry thought about the Dursleys and how they had locked him in his room and fed him through a cat flap, how they would happily be rid of him for the rest of their lives. He thought about the Weasleys, with their house full of five kids and two more already gone, and how they only managed to keep track of him because he was attached to Ron's side, whether he wanted to be or not.

"No," he answered truthfully.

The man sighed. "I'm too good for my _own_ damn good," he said to himself. "I really think you should get out of here, but if you really have nowhere to go, I'd rather you stick with me. At least you'd be safe with me, if not all that well-fed."

"I'm used to being hungry," Harry pointed out, which made the man frown. "Could I really stay with you?"

"Course," the man grinned. "I could always use the company, and having a pair of eyes wouldn't hurt."

So Harry thought again. He thought about being Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, famous for something he never wanted. He thought about how everyone stared at him, expecting him to save the day anytime there was danger. He thought about how much he didn't want that, how he didn't want fans or people pretending to be his friends.

He thought about Hogwarts and magic, and what it would mean to give all that up, but then he remembered he was in a magical place. He could still learn magic, even if he did live on the street.

Uncle Vernon had always said that was all he was good for, anyway.

He thought about this man, this blind wizard living in an alley, and how no one looked at him or expected anything from him.

"I want to stay," he decided.

The man smile, squeezing his shoulder. "Alright kid. I'm Johnson. What's your name?"

"Harry."

"You got a last name, Harry?" Johnson prodded.

Harry frowned. He didn't want to say Potter. Johnson would know who he was and tell everyone, and then he would have to go back. He didn't want to use his mother's name, either. It was too obvious. "Black," he settled on, using his hair colour. He thought he'd heard someone say something about a Black family once, hopefully it was a big family.

"Pureblood, eh?" Johnson frowned. "Bit odd. You a Squib?"

So it _was_ a real family, and a pureblood one at that. "No."

"Alright then," Johnson accepted, sliding his arm over Harry's shoulders. "Stick with me, young Mr Black, and we'll do alright."


	2. Not a Charity Case

Merlin, Draco hated going into Muggle London. What on _earth_ at possessed him to do such a thing? And on a Thursday?

Oh, that's right, Blaise Zabini. The stupid prat wanted to go to a Muggle club and dragged Draco along, just to leave him at the bar while he went off with some slag in too much lipstick and not enough dress. Circe, Draco needed to just come out and be done with it. It was embarrassing to be dateless at seventeen, even if he wasn't a virgin.

So Blaise was off getting his rocks off as part of a last summer blow out before their NEWT year, and Draco was left fending off handsy sluts and trying to find the Apparation point in the dark. He turned another corner, each leading onto a street darker than the last, sure he had made a wrong turn somewhere.

This street wasn't empty, unlike the last ones. Towards the end of the block, there was a single street light, weak and shaky. A man stood beneath it, smoking and slouching against it. As Draco drew nearer, he heard the man laugh and say something, and realised there were actually two men. The other was partially hidden in shadow, leaning against the wall provocatively.

Male prostitutes. Draco's mouth went dry.

"Hey, Blondie." The smoker noticed him first, beckoning him closer with a come-hither expression. He had sandy blond hair and dull blue eyes, and wore dark jeans and a white shirt, both a little too tight. "Looking for something?"

"Ah, no, n-not really," Draco stuttered, reluctantly coming closer.

Smoker sauntered over to him, hips sway. "Well lucky you, you found it anyway," he croon, running his fingertips across Draco's chest. "You're a handsome thing."

"T-thank you?" Draco tried not to choke on Smoker's foul breath.

The one in the shadow noticed anyway, going by his faint chuckle. "Quit breathing in his face, Evan, you smell like a tar pit."

Evan pouted. "Fuck off, Ink! This is exactly how you take all my buyers," he shot back before turning to Draco again. "How 'bout it, Blondie? You seem tense. I can help you there. I'm the best piece of arse you'll ever find," he promised. Draco was now wide-eyed, trying to find a way out.

Ink chuckled again, sliding smoothly out of the shadow. In the weak light, Draco could see he wore only black leather trousers tucked into worn motorcycle boots. He wore a series of rings in each ear, and even had two studs going through his left eyebrow. His clothes and hair were as dark as ink, which could have been where he got his name, except that it clearly came from his tattoos, all in black and grey. An enormous black snake coiled over the entire length of his right arm, over top of a motif of lilies. Chains and barbed wire over grey flames covered his left, and a flock of silhouetted ravens took flight up the column of his neck.

"Not comfortable with that?" He stepped forward and Evan immediately backed off, pouting again. "Maybe you just need a hand for a bit? Or a mouth?" he breathed into Draco's ear. He leaned back and ran his tongue slowly across his bottom lip, drawing Draco's attention to his perfect pink mouth. His fingers ghosted across Draco's chest, never touching him but still leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake. "How about it, Gorgeous? It won't take long. I promise."

Draco groaned, his knees wobbling at Ink's sultry tone. Triumph flashed in Ink's eyes as he crooked a finger, leading Draco into a nearby alley, nearly pitch black. When he turned, Draco could see the massive tattoo on his back, a raven and a panther chasing each other in an endless circle.

Fuck, but he was hot. Draco had never been so hard in his life as he was at the idea of this dangerous creature on his knees, sucking him off.

"I-" Draco tried to say something, but Ink shushed him.

"Hush now, Gorgeous, leave it to me. You just stay right here and try not to fall over." He winked, pressing Draco against the wall before dropping smoothly to his knees. Draco was panting already and he hadn't even gotten his pants off.

Ink looked up at him with bright green eyes that sparked some recognition in Draco, but all thought was lost when the man pulled out his cock and swallowed it down in a single move. His head fell back and he buried his hands in wild black hair, losing himself to this young man's talented mouth. He couldn't stop the noises coming from his throat as Ink bobbed his head and hummed around Draco's cock. He had no idea how much time passed, but he knew it wasn't nearly enough before he was coming with a hoarse shout, Ink swallowing his release easily.

He slid off and tuck Draco away again, letting Draco catch his breath. Draco looked down at him, vision still hazy, when he noticed something on Ink's forehead, something exposed by Draco's wrenching hands in his hair.

"Fucking hell," he whispered. "_Potter?"_

Ink's - _Potter's_ – eyes went wide, then he was up, slamming Draco against the wall by his throat and taking his wand. "Who are you?" he growled. The seduction was gone now, replaced by pure deadly danger. "How do you know?"

"Honestly, Potter," Draco said with a bit of difficulty. "Our classmates haven't stopped talking about your disappearance yet." He rolled his eyes.

"Malfoy," Potter breathed, eyes narrowing. "I hope no one's waiting on you right now."

"No, wh-"

He was cut off by the sudden crushing feeling of Apparation.

-0-

Fuck fuck _fuck!_ Why did it have to be Draco Malfoy, of all people, who found him without his glamour charms on? He didn't dare use them in Muggle London, too many chances the Ministry would try to catch him for using magic around Muggles.

Fucking Draco Malfoy!

He yanked open the door to his dingy flat and tossed the still-shocked blond inside, shutting the door behind them. He threw Malfoy down on the sofa.

"This had better be a damn accident," he growled, enjoying a bit the way he could see the white all the way around Malfoy's eyes. _Gorgeous_ grey eyes, he wasn't wrong to give the teen that name.

Nice cock too.

"Of course it was an accident!" Malfoy hissed indignantly. "Do you honestly think I would bother looking for you? On a street corner in _Muggle_ London?!"

He scrubbed a hand down his face and collapsed into a threadbare armchair. "No, I suppose not. Fuck!"

"Potter?" Malfoy asked hesitantly. Harry peered at him over his hand. "Why…why did you go?"

Harry sighed. "I hated it."

"Hated what?"

"Being Harry Potter." He waved Malfoy's wand and summoned his Wizard Cigarrettes (all the nicotine, none of the lung damage), lighting one and taking a long drag before he continued. "The summer before second year, I was staying with the Weasleys and we Flooed to Diagon." He laughed a bit. "Apparently, I'm shit at the Floo, since I came out in Knockturn. Ended up in Borgin and Burke's, just as you and your father came in."

"What?!" Malfoy gaped. "You were there?"

Harry smirked. "Yep. I hid in the Vanishing cabinet and tried to run when you left. Ended up getting hopelessly lost and came across a blind beggar in an alley who took me under his wing. Johnson was only eighteen then. I told him my name was Harry Black."

Malfoy looked so confused, like he couldn't ever understand giving up a life of unwanted fame without privacy for scrounging on the streets. "But…why?"

"Why would I give up having to go back to my relatives who put bars on my window and put my food through a cat flap in the door, if they bothered to feed me at all? Why would I take a chance to not be stared at everyone moment of my life? Yeah, I wonder," he said sarcastically. He took another drag and blew a long stream of smoke toward the ceiling, catching Malfoy's eye as he stared.

"Well, I always knew you'd end up with the wrong sort," Malfoy scoffed, trying to regain the upper hand. Poor boy didn't understand that he'd never had it, not since he turned the corner onto Harry's street.

"Yes, the wrong sort that just sucked you off," he grinned. "If you hadn't spotted my scar, you would have paid for it too. What does that say about you?"

Malfoy growled but let it go. "Why not just go into Gringotts? You've got money. Surely you aren't that stupid."

"Can't." Harry flicked his cigarette. "I'm not stupid. I can't go into Gringotts without being immediately found out." He rose, holding the handle of Malfoy's wand out to him. "Get going, Malfoy. Tell anyone where I am or what I'm doing, and I will hunt you down, slaughter you, and disappear again."

Malfoy hesitated at the door. "Potter…if I wanted to find you again, just me, you know…where would I look?"

Harry looked him over carefully. Malfoy flushed, clearly trying not to stare too openly. He sighed. "I'm only in Muggle London on Thursdays. Look on the corner of Toxic and Serpent, a block off Knockturn Alley."

"Alright," he nodded and turned away.

"And Malfoy," the blond turned back, "I don't fuck." He slammed the door shut.

He fell back into his chair, raking his fingers through his hair and lighting up another cigarette.

Fucking hell.

-0-

"Oi! D'you get a girl after all?" Blaise called from the sofa as Draco opened the door. "Any good?"

"Very good," Draco said, flopping down on an ottoman. He left out the part where his 'girl' was actually a tattooed and pierced boy. A rent boy.

And Harry Potter on top of it all.

Fuck, he needed to come out. Maybe it was the alcohol/shock talking, but suddenly Draco thought it would be a grand idea to come out to Blaise right then.

"I, er," he tried to find the right words as Blaise stared at him curiously. "I got some excellent head. From a guy. I got blown by a guy."

"Really?" Blaise raised an eyebrow. "Is this…um, is this a new thing? Or, um…"

Draco coughed. "No, er, it's…I'm gay."

"Oh." Blaise rolled over and stared at the ceiling. "Ok then."

"You're…alright with this?"

"Yeah. Yeah, you're still my friend, right? Just…you know, into blokes."

Draco smiled. "Yeah. Thanks."

Blaise might have mumbled something in reply, but Draco passed out before he could understand it.

He slept until the early afternoon, head and limbs hanging off the ottoman awkwardly. He woke up suddenly when he rolled over and hit the floor. Merlin, his mouth tasted horrible! His head was pounding, and Blaise was banging around in the kitchen, singing loudly and off-key.

"Shut _the fuck_ UP!" Draco called, curling up on the floor in a fetal position. Blaise laughed. "Damn it, do something helpful for once, I'm dying."

"Drama queen," Blaise called. "Take a potion and get in the shower. We're going out again."

Draco grimaced, swallowing a hangover potion. "Where?"

"Knockturn, there's a couple clubs we can hit."

Potter worked in Knockturn. The corner of Toxic and Serpent, he remembered. "Er, Blaise? You mind if I cut out on you early tonight? The…guy I met last night, he lives around there."

"How the fuck did you find another gay wizard in _Muggle_ London?" Blaise asked, gaping at him.

Draco flushed. "I…got lucky," he said, remembering the smoker's attempts to pick him up. "So do you mind?"

Blaise grinned evilly. "Why don't you bring him along? I'd like to meet this guy with a magical mouth." Draco flushed again and coughed, recalling just how magical Potter's mouth was.

"I'll, uh, I'll ask."

The red light district, at the far edge of Knockturn, was dingy and smoky. Globes of light drifted through the air very occasionally, revealing both men and women leaning against walls provocatively. Draco picked his way through the streets, avoiding eye contact, until he reached the right corner, covered in shadow.

"Po- um, Ink?" he called, changing his words quickly. He figured Potter wouldn't like him ousting him to the entire population of Knockturn hookers and rent boys.

"Hello, Gorgeous," Potter purred, slinking toward him. He ran a hand down Draco's chest and hooked a finger under his waistband. "Thought I'd be seeing you soon. Same again?" He leaned in to whisper into Draco's ear. "No charge for you. I trust you to keep my secret."

"Oh! I- really?" Draco tried to be coherent, but frankly there just wasn't enough blood left in his brain for that.

"Oh yes," Potter crooned, already pulling him toward a dark alcove in the wall. "You seem like the kind of person to keep a secret, just because it makes you special."

"I, uh, I wanted to ask you something," Draco choked out.

Potter hummed, nose already pressed into the front of Draco's trousers. "Talk then. If you can," he winked.

"I told my friend I met a gu- oh!" he gasped as Potter swallowed him down. He clenched his hands in Potter's hair. "Met a guy, and he- oh, fuck!- wants to me y-you." Circe, this was difficult! "S-so- oh!- I said I'd ask- fucking hell, P-Ink!" he growled.

Potter pulled off with a pop to lap at his balls, drawing whimpers from Draco. "You have the most beautiful cock," he murmured, the vibrations of his voice doing terrible, glorious things to Draco. "I love it, it's so nice." He took Draco's cock back in his mouth and swallowed it all the way down again, pressing his nose into Draco's pubic bone and humming.

"Fuck!" Draco shouted, his hips jerking as his release tore through him. "Oh, fucking hell."

Potter rocked back on his heels and grinned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. "You had a question?"

"Shit, give me a minute," Draco panted, sliding down the wall as his legs gave out. "I told Blaise I'd ask if you wanted to come out with us. To the clubs."

Potter frowned. "Malfoy," he sighed, "don't."

"Don't what?" Merlin, why was it taking so long just to get his brain working again?

Potter cast a quick privacy ward. "Don't pity me. I chose to live this kind of life. I'm not going to suddenly become an _upstanding member of society_," he spat the words, "just because some rich pureblood thinks he can save Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Fell-From-Grace!"

"It isn't pity!" Draco shouted, forcing Potter to lean back. "I'm not- I don't- it isn't pity. It's…interest." Potter's brow furrowed. "Everyone I know, all my life, has wanted fame. They want that power. You don't. You just gave it all up, and now you're a rent boy, blowing strange men in alleys, and you're _happy_." He gestured wildly before stilling, his hands dropping lifelessly. "I just want to understand you. Harry."

Potter, Harry, buried his face in his hands. "Draco," he groaned. "You don't understand. There's a reason people like me stand on the street corners. We aren't welcome in the clubs."

Draco grinned. "If that's your only excuse, then I know you're coming. Trust me, the Malfoy name will get you anywhere."

"Get this straight, Draco Malfoy," he jabbed a finger into Draco's chest. "I am not a charity project. This…whatever it is. It can be me pretending to be your fucking boyfriend, I don't give shit, but it isn't a reform mission!"

"No, it isn't," Draco agreed. "It's just…" he trailed off, trying to understand what he needed to say. Did he dare ask? Ah, fuck it. "Can you come, just to get Blaise off my back? He's expecting me to bring a date."

Harry stared at him with narrowed eyes. He stood smoothly, offering a hand to haul Draco up. "Alright. Let's go on a date." Draco broke into a wide smile, and he even grinned a little. "Hold on, let me make sure no one will recognise me."

"Do you really need to do that?" Draco asked curiously.

Harry's mouth twisted ruefully. "You've experienced my _services_, Gorgeous. Think I might be just a bit popular around here?" Draco's mouth popped open and his blushed, but Harry just laughed.

Harry changed out his leather trousers for black denim, slung low around his hips with a studded belt, but left his boots. He conjured an emerald green button up, unbuttoned to his collar bones and with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a black silk waistcoat to go over it, unbuttoned. His scar was already glamoured, with an avoidance charm that directed people's eyes away from his forehead.

"Wow," Draco gasped. "You clean up nice."

Harry scowled at him. "I get more money when I don't have a shirt on. I'm not incapable of dressing myself," he snapped. Draco looked away, ashamed. "One more thing," Harry murmured, pressing his wand to the base of his throat. He murmured a spell, and colour began to bleed through in his tattoos. "The black and grey is…rather distinctive. That's why they call me Ink."

The snake on his right arm rippled and turned green and silver, while the lilies beneath it turned into roses. The flames on his left arm became vibrant orange and yellow, and the flock of ravens on his neck became ivy and tiny bunches of purple grapes.

"That's," Draco gaped, "yeah, that's different."

Harry grinned, his green eyes bright, and held a hand out to Draco. "Shall we?"

-0-

Apparently Draco's friend was straight, but cool with him being gay, since they met up at The Door, a club well-known for 'swinging both ways.' The bouncer glared at them, until Harry gave his best bedroom eyes. Then he couldn't open the velvet rope fast enough.

"Draco!" A darker-skinned teen sat at a table in the back, a black-haired girl next to him on the plush couch. Harry assumed this was Draco's friend.

"Blaise," Draco greeted, forcing his way through the crowds. Harry hooked his finger through Draco's belt loop, not wanting to be left behind.

He tried not to gape at the interior of the club. It was full of colourful flashing strobe lights and faint mist. Music pulsed, the base thudding in his chest, and the air smelled like alcohol, sweat and sex.

Circe, this was not his kind of place. What was he doing here? He was a fucking rent boy, he belonged in the dirty alleyways! Not here, with the velvet couches and posh people trying to attract each other.

No one tried to attract rent boys. They just paid them.

"Blaise, this is the guy I told you about," Draco said, drawing Harry's attention back to the little group at the table.

"Hadrian Black," Harry said, offering his hand. "Call me Harry."

"Blaise Zabini," the…Italian? boy offered with a smirk, taking his hand. "This is Pansy Parkinson," he added, gesturing to the girl by his side, who gave him a flirty look and bit her lip. Harry bit back a scoff. He sucked cock for a living; she would end up disappointed.

Pugface Parkinson, he recalled. He remembered her vaguely from his one year of school.

"So, Harry," she purred, leaning close to him, "how old are you? You can't have gone to Hogwarts. I'd remember that handsome face."

"Yes, out of all my tattoos and piercings, my face would be what you remember," Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm seventeen," he answered, fudging it a bit. He'd gotten rid of the Trace on his wand illegally years ago, so what did it matter if he said his birthday was in July or January. He celebrated it on New Year's Day now. "And no, I don't go to Hogwarts."

"Oh?" Pansy inched closer to him on the couch. "Do you go abroad?"

"I don't go to school. Period," he said flatly, sliding away to lean into Draco instead. "I need a drink. Want anything, Gorgeous?" he purred, loving the way the name made Draco flush. And it made Pansy glare.

"S-scotch, please," he stammered. "Here, let me pay!"

Harry cocked a hip and unleashed his bedroom eyes. "Draco, does it look like I need money?" Then he laughed and sauntered away as Draco gaped. Time to go turn on the bartender.

-0-

"What the- he's gonna get free drinks!" Pansy growled. "I can never get free drinks!"

"Pans, I'm pretty sure Harry could get a straight guy on his knees with those eyes," Blaise said, dazed. "Free drinks are not the most important thing." He shook his head slightly and turned to Draco. "How. The _fuck_. Did you pull him?"

"I'm sure I should feel insulted," Draco sniffed, "but I honestly have no idea."

"_Pulled_ him? Pulled _him!"_ Pansy screeched. "You mean he, the hottest thing I have ever seen, Mr Sex-On-Two-Legs, Mr Take-Me-I'll-Do-Anything-For-It, is gay!"

"Oh yeah," Draco said dreamily.

"And you!" she pointed accusingly. "You're gay too!"

"Yeah, apparently Harry's the one that made him decide to come out," Blaise said.

They all stopped talking to watch Harry slink back to the table, scotch in one hand and straight vodka in the other. He handed off the scotch and lit a cigarette, tilting his head back to blow the smoke back out. Draco ran his eyes down the long column of Harry's neck, covered over with grape vines. Blaise caught his eye and mimed wiping drool off his chin.

Harry asked about Hogwarts as the bartender kept bringing drinks, letting Blaise and Pansy chatter on about Quidditch and Slytherin. Draco realised he was keeping them from asking too many questions about him. He nodded and said all the right things, asking questions that got one of them to go off and not notice him.

"You would have been a perfect Slytherin," he murmured in Harry's ear, noticing again the row of piercings partially hidden under his hair. He nuzzled his nose against the cold metal, barely noticing his movements.

Harry grinned. "I would have been, if you had stayed out of my compartment on the train."

Draco pulled back and stared at him, shocked. Harry smirked and plucked his empty glass out of his hand. "C'mon, Gorgeous, I want to dance."

If Draco thought Harry was pure sex standing still, then, _Merlin_, what compared to him dancing? Gays and girls all over the club, even straight guys, were staring at them, open-mouthed. Harry tangled one hand in Draco's hair and bent his knees slightly to slide down his leg like a fucking stripper pole. He tucked his other fingers under Draco's belt to pull him closer, pressing their hips together.

Draco let out a moan and Harry chuckled darkly. "Mm, like that?" he said, voice deep.

"Oh fucking hell," Draco whispered. "Are you trying to make me come in the middle of the club?"

"It entertains me," Harry laughed. "But I suppose I could stop, if you want me to."

"It's that or I rip off our clothes and we have sex right here," Draco gasped as Harry gave another forceful grind of the hips.

Harry stepped back suddenly, eyes cold. "I told you, Malfoy. I don't fuck."

"No, right, you said," Draco tried to recover, but the alcohol he'd had was definitely messing with his brain. "Should we- do you want to go?"

"Yeah," Harry sighed. "Yeah, let's go." He took Draco's hand and let himself be led back to the table to make excuses and say farewells.

"Have fun!" Blaise called cheekily with a wink as they left. Outside, Harry wrapped an arm around his waist and Apparated them to his flat.

-0-

Harry sighed as Draco staggered through the landing in his flat. Circe, how much scotch did he drink? Harry had lost track of how many drinks he'd had, but that didn't matter. He'd made a deal with the bartender to give him water instead of vodka. He didn't drink anymore. He would be a year sober in August.

"Fuck, Draco," he grumbled, trying to keep the blond steady as they walked.

"Was it a good date?" Draco asked seriously. He looked up with wide, innocent eyes that were so at odds with the look on his face when Harry made him come in a dirty alley.

Damn it.

"It was a good date," he said softly. "No c'mon, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

Draco tried to squirm away. "No, I'm fine! I'm fine, I can go home."

Harry sighed, tossing him down on the sofa. "No. You aren't. I'm not taking you anywhere, and if you try to go yourself, you'll Splinch yourself. Just," he raked a hand through his hair, "stay, alright? Sleep. Don't roll on your back. I'll see you in the morning."

Draco called out to him as he stepped away. "Can I have a goodnight kiss?"

"No." Harry slammed the door to his room shut and flopped down on the bed.

-0-

Draco sat up, licking at his teeth to try to get rid of the fuzzy feeling on them. He was in Harry's shabby flat, on the sofa. Apparently Harry had enough sense not to let him try to go home drunk.

"Coffee on the counter," Harry called. Draco spotted him leaning on the sill of the open kitchen window, smoking another of his red Wizard Cigarettes. His tattoos were back to their proper shape and colour, or lack thereof.

Draco grunted his thanks and hauled himself up to stumble over to the coffee. Harry had set out a hangover potion too, which Draco tossed back like a shot. He started to feel better instantly. He sipped at the coffee, watching Harry finish off his cigarette.

"Don't look for me for a while," he murmured.

"What? Why?" Draco asked, shocked. He thought they'd gotten along alright.

Harry gave him a piercing look. Not even the last remainders of deep sleep could dull those green eyes. "The Ministry's going to raid tonight. It happens every couple of months around here, but they're starting to get more common. Standard procedure for us is to stop working for a week afterward." He stubbed the cigarette butt out and vanished it with a lazy flick of his wand. "Aurors only manage to get the stupid ones anyway. Or the desperate ones, the ones who can't afford to stop working."

"What about you?" Draco asked, both worried and curious.

Harry smirked. "Oh, they've never caught me. You really think they would have let me come back? No, you'd have seen it all over the papers."

"Oh." Yeah, that was kind of obvious. "But what about money?"

His expression went cold again. Draco really needed to stop putting his foot in his mouth, but Potter had always been so good at turning him into a bumbling idiot. "I have enough money, thanks," he said flatly. "Done with your coffee? You better go."

It wasn't a very subtle hint, but it worked. Draco drained the rest of his coffee and pulled on his shoes. He looked back at the door, but Harry was leaning out the window again, not looking at him. Draco sighed and shut the door behind him before apparating away.

Hopefully Blaise would still be passed out, in no shape to ask questions.


	3. After the Raid

Harry hated when the Aurors raided. He got twitchy, just sitting in his flat for a week. He couldn't even risk going outside during a raid shutdown, as the Knockturn residents called the week after a raid. He was infamous in the DMLE; every Auror wanted to catch Ink, like the fabled 'big one' of Muggle fishing trips.

Even after the shutdown was lifted, business was slow. Everyone was skittish, looking over their shoulders for those distinctive DMLE scarlet robes.

"How 'bout a kiss, sweetheart?"

Harry looked over the man who spoke. Middle-aged, balding and pudgy, married. Bored. Unhappy and unsatisfied, clearly not getting enough of what he wanted from his wife. She probably ran the household, so he was out here, looking for a little control.

Well, Harry never was very submissive. He was always in control, and people came to him to be taken care of. Clearly, this guy was new.

"Not my style," Harry answered smoothly. "I can do a lot with my mouth, but I never kiss."

"Listen here, you little slut," the man growled, reaching for his throat.

Harry released his tight control over his dangerously unstable magic, letting it prickle across the man's skin, sucking the air from his lungs. "I don't do pain and submission, either. Sorry you're not man enough to stand up to your wife, but pick another whore. Might I suggest the lovely ladies on Dragon Court?"

The man turned purple in the face, a la Vernon Dursley, but he spun on a heel and walked away. Very few people were willing to mess with Harry when he let his magic out. It was difficult for him to control normally, but under pressure it would easily kill.

So he was back to leaning against the wall, waiting for another customer to come by.

-0-

"What happened to that guy you brought on Friday? Harry?" Blaise asked.

Draco shrugged. "He had to go out of town this week." Before the Aurors dragged him up before the Wizengamot on solicitation charges. "He'll be back in a couple of days."

"Good," Blaise said briskly, rubbing his hands together. "Pansy and Theo are meeting us for dinner on Tuesday. Bring him."

Draco stared at him. "You can't just make plans for us!" he cried out.

"Au contraire," Blaise replied. "I can, and I have, and Theo is quite interested to meet this fellow of yours. Eight at the Sunset View. Dress properly."

So it was that Draco found his way to Harry's flat on a Tuesday afternoon, wringing his hands as he waited for the door to open.

"Draco?" Harry asked, looking at him cautiously. "What is it?"

"Can I come it? Lingering on doorsteps is not in my nature."

Harry surveyed him narrowly, but stepped back to let him through. He didn't offer a seat or sit himself, just crossed his arms and waited. "Go on, then."

Draco sighed. "Blaise has made arrangements for us again. Dinner tonight with Pansy and Theodore Nott. He's commanded that I bring you."

Harry's face twisted into a scowl. "I don't care what your little posh friend says, I'm not going to be trotted out like some boy toy at his beck and call."

"It's just for tonight," Draco begged.

Harry played with one of his eyebrow studs. "I can't. I haven't worked in a week, I can't risk another night without any money."

"I'll pay you," Draco said desperately. "Please, I need you to come tonight."

The expression on Harry's face became calculating. "How much?" he asked slowly.

"Fifty Galleons," Draco offered.

"Seventy-five," Harry countered, "and you feel lucky I don't charge by the hour."

Draco wanted to object, tried to think of an objection, and failed. "Alright," he accepted, "but I have to approve what you're wearing."

Harry grinned. "Ok. Sit, I'll be right back." Draco sat on the couch, mentally preparing himself to deal with the fashion war that was sure to come.

In fact, it only took a few hours for them to settle on black slacks and a black button up, again rolled up to his elbows. Harry wore a skinny, blood-red tie that set off the colour of the roses in his disguised tattoos. The longest argument had been over the shoes. Draco had wanted dragonhide boots, but Harry had insisted on some red and white Muggle trainers he called 'Converse.' In the end they had settled on black dress shoes polished to a mirror shine. Draco hadn't even bothered to start a fight over the piercings. They really drew the whole outfit together, anyway. In a very punk, bad boy way.

Draco thought he looked incredibly sexy as they left the flat, taking Harry's hand to Apparate them to the restaurant.

-0-

The Sunset View. Harry stared at the name on the sign, then turned on Draco. "Why the hell didn't you tell me you were bringing me here?" he hissed.

Draco leaned back, eyes wide. "I didn't think it mattered," he said honestly.

"Oh, it didn't matter," Harry scoffed. "No, you're just bringing a prettied-up whore to the premier restaurant of magical Britain, where people need years of etiquette training just to get a reservation. No, you're right, it doesn't matter at all!"

"You can leave if you want to," Draco said quietly. "I'll still give you the money and everything."

"Don't you pity me, I am not a charity case," Harry snapped. "I work for my money, whether it's looking pretty or giving head in an alley." He ground the heel of his hand into his forehead, knowing he was in for a headache. "Besides, this is more money than I could make in a night, unless I took every offer." He took a deep breath and straightened up, pushing his shoulders back. "Right, let's go embarrass myself."

Draco gave him a concerned look, but took his hand to lead the way.

The maître d' stared openly at him, eyes flicking from his tattoos to his piercings, over to Draco, down at their joined hands, and back to him. He led them to a private room when Draco gave the name, but he kept watching Harry like he might steal the silver off the tables as they passed.

You can take the whore off the street, but you can't take the street out of the whore, he mused.

Theodore Nott, Theo, was vaguely familiar from Hogwarts, but no memory of him stuck out in Harry's mind. He stared at Harry too, his mouth flapping like a fish until he regained control of himself.

"Hadrian Black, but call me Harry," he said smoothly, offering his hand. Then he sat next to Draco.

Hopefully he could avoid making a complete idiot of himself. After all, Slytherins were the most suspicious people there were. He didn't want any of them digging into his background.

-0-

Dinner was going very well. Harry came off a little uncultured, but Blaise, Pansy and Theo seemed content to attribute it to his eccentric background. They might actually make it through the night easily.

Or they would have, until Theo opened his fat mouth.

"Father's been complaining about how much money the Ministry's spending on raids in Knockturn," he said, like it was rare and precious information. Nott, Sr was the head of the Ministry's Department of Funding and Finance. "Five in three months, and all for nothing!"

"Do they really expect Knockturn people to be stupid enough to be caught by Aurors?" Pansy asked incredulously. "Shopkeepers always keep the Dark things hidden."

"Oh, they're not after the shops," Theo replied with a spark in his eye. "They're trying to get rid of the whores."

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Harry go stiff in his chair.

"Good riddance, then" Pansy sniffed.

"Ah, come on, they're good for a fuck if you need one," Blaise smirked.

Harry's knuckles were white where he clenched his fists in his lap.

"Why would you do such a thing?" Pansy screeched. "They're filthy creatures, they've probably got all manner of diseases! Why anyone would want to live like that, I'll never know," she added loftily.

"No, you won't, will you?" Harry said in a low, cold voice, drawing shocked looks from across the table. "Has it occurred to you that most of them don't _want_ to live that way, they _have_ to? Not everyone can live on Daddy's money until they marry someone else's money, after all," he pointed out venomously. "Some people get left to scrounge in the dirt, and the Ministry punishes them for it." He gave them all an icy glare as he pushed his chair back and stood. "Excuse me."

"What's his problem?" Blaise asked when he was gone.

Draco glared at him. "He _lives_ in Knockturn, you arse. He's got a disgusting two-room flat because that's all he can afford, and the people you see as willing bodies or 'filthy creatures' are his friends." Pansy looked away, ashamed. "He didn't grow up with money, like us, he grew up in dirt too." He stood and tossed his napkin on the table. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go convince him that I'm not nearly the insensitive bastard that my friends are. Thank you for picking up our bill."

He swept out of the room, leaving a shocked and curious silence behind.

He caught up to Harry just as he was unlocking his flat. "Harry, wait, please-"

"Go home, Draco," Harry replied without looking at him. "You and I, we're nothing alike. Stick with the high society, marry a nice rich wizard and take summer trips to France. Don't bother wasting your time on a rent boy."

"Harry, stop." Draco slid a foot in the door, keeping him from closing it. "I'm not wasting my time with you, and I'm not running back to the Manor so more posh old ladies can sneer at me and make me marry their daughters." He could feel Harry's magic running over his skin, a testament to his high emotion. "Just let me in, please. I'll make some tea, and…we can just talk, alright?"

Harry didn't turn around, but his shoulders slumped and he stopped trying to shut the door on him. Draco stepped inside.

"It's not the first time I've heard opinions like that," Harry said, after they had their tea. He sat on the chair, his legs curled under him in a disarmingly childlike fashion. "But it's always been from people who know exactly what I am, trying to hurt me. It's not every man for himself on the streets, we protect each other, so I know no one will hurt me and I can ignore them. But that…" he shook his head. "I'd forgotten what normal people think of us. That we aren't real people."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"Didn't know how they felt? Or just didn't know they would bring it up in dinner conversation like that?" Harry snorted. "It doesn't matter, anyway. You can't apologise for what your friends think."

Draco nodded, sipping at his tea. Harry had yet to meet his eyes.

"You asked me about my money, that first time you were here," he said quietly. "The truth is, I don't have any. Not anymore. My father turned the family vault over to Dumbledore during the war, and he drained it to support the Order of the Phoenix. All I had was my trust vault, which was just enough to get me through school, and I ended up spending it all on drugs."

Draco gaped at him.

Harry smirked weakly. "No one's innocent on the streets. I spent nearly three years doped up to the eyeballs. The money ran out just a year ago, and I started paying for it with…other means."

"What did you take?" Draco asked tentatively.

"Anything I could get." Harry stared at the wall to his right. "Muggle, magical, it didn't matter. Illegal potions, wizard salts, heroin, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy. I drank too, all the time. My magic is probably the only reason I'm still alive, but it destabilised my core, so it's gone pretty much wild."

"Are you clean now?"

"A year come August 19th," Harry answered proudly. "I haven't so much as had a drink in ten months."

"But at the club-" Draco began, confused, but Harry just smirked.

"Just water. I made a deal with the bartender."

Harry told him how he'd practically seduced the man, making Draco both impressed and amused by his antics, until he noticed how late it was.

"I should go," he said regretfully, standing. Harry's smile dropped and he nodded.

"Draco," he called as the blond turned away.

"Yeah?" Draco turned back, almost hopeful.

Harry gave a sad smile. "The money," he reminded.

"Oh." Draco counted out seventy-five Galleons from a bottomless purse connected to his personal vault, stacking them on an end table. "Goodnight, Harry."

Harry just nodded once, not looking at him or the money.

-0-

Harry was in the middle of convincing some poor fool to part with his money when Draco showed up again.

"Oi, back off, Blondie," the man growled as Draco came close and slid a possessive hand across the back of Harry's neck.

"I don't think I will," Draco sneered back. "Besides, I can offer twice what you could ever afford."

The man growled, but he eventually fell under the weight of Draco haughty stare and left.

Always aware that eyes were watching from the dark windows and shadowed corners all over Knockturn, Harry turned to Draco with his usual behaviour.

"Well hello, Gorgeous," he purred, caressing Draco's chest. "What say we see if you're as well-endowed as your vaults, hm?" He hooked a couple fingers into the waistband of Draco's slacks and pulled him toward the alley.

Once covered by darkness, he pulled out his wand and cast a privacy ward. "What the hell was that?" he hissed. "I'd got him to pay twice my going rate!"

"I'll pay," Draco said apologetically.

"Oh, you're going to pay through the nose," Harry growled. "You drove off my first customer in days. Better start counting your gold now."

He dropped to his knees, handling Draco roughly in his anger, though from the breathy gasps above him, the blond didn't mind too much. He gripped Draco's cock tightly and gave a few rough strokes as he bit and sucked at the skin over his hipbones and inner thighs. He ran his open mouth down the shaft, giving just a hint of teeth before he finally put the whole thing in his mouth and sucked hard, hollowing his cheeks. Draco screamed as his orgasm was wrung out of him.

"Eighty Galleons, twice what the other guy was willing to pay," he said coldly, wiping his mouth. Draco counted out the gold and handed it over with shaky hands. Harry pocketed it and rose, leaving Draco slumped against the wall. "Next time wait your turn. I don't belong to you," he spat, striding back out to the street corner.

-0-

Draco let the bites and bruises on his pale skin heal naturally, a reminder of the way he'd stupidly acted on a jealous impulse. Blaise had given him a ribbing that time he'd spotted him coming out of the shower with a towel slung around his hips.

The Italian boy hadn't forgotten Harry in the least, though he was embarrassed over the way they'd acted at the Sunset View. Now, apparently, he wanted to apologise, and he wanted Draco to bring Harry to a casual dinner at their flat.

Pansy and Theo even agreed.

So Draco sighed and grumbled and went to Harry's flat early one afternoon, nearly two weeks after he'd last seen Harry.

Harry opened to door slowly, looking thin and haggard. The stark black ink of his tattoos only emphasized how pale he was.

"How much?" he said tiredly, not even greeting him. "And how much more would you give me if I let you fuck me?"

"What are you talking about?" Draco asked, concerned, as he stepped into the flat. "I thought you didn't do sex."

"That was when I wasn't having trouble working," Harry answered, already dropping to his knees and reaching for Draco's flies.

Draco caught his wrist. "Stop. I didn't come for that." Harry looked at him with blank eyes. "My friends want to apologise to you. They want you to come over for dinner."

"So you aren't here for sex?" Harry clarified.

"No." Draco looked at him closely, noting the dark circles under his eyes. "Harry, what's wrong?"

"I need the money," Harry muttered, eyes downcast. He sat back on his haunches, letting his wrist hang limply in Draco's grasp.

"When's the last time you ate properly?"

Harry shrugged. "About the same time as the raid," he said quietly, eyes on the floor still.

Draco gaped. "That was over a month ago!" Harry shrugged again. "Merlin, Harry, you could have said something."

"Not a charity case."

"No," Draco sighed. "No, you're not." He let go of Harry and sat on the sofa. "Look, I'll pay you to come over tonight, alright?"

"How much?" Draco hated the desperation in Harry's voice.

"A hundred." He could see the calculating look in Harry's eye, trying to figure out if he could live on that. He caught Harry's chin and raised it until grey eyes met green. "And I'll stock your kitchen. Enough food for two weeks."

"Alright," Harry whispered. He stood. "What should I wear?"

While Pansy was apologising effusively to Harry after they got to the flat, Blaise dragged Draco aside.

"What's wrong with him? He looks half-dead."

Draco sighed. Of course there was no way to hide Harry's gaunt appearance and the sickly pale skin that made his colour-disguised tattoos even brighter. "He's had it rough since the last raid. He said Knockturn always shuts down for a while after raids, but it's never been this bad before."

"He can't be that bad off," Blaise argued. "Look how he dresses. No one who's starving buys silk or linen."

"No, but anyone with enough magic can Transfigure them for a few hours," Draco pointed out. Blaise opened his mouth again, but Draco cut him off. "Just leave it, alright? People like us, people with old money, we'll never understand. Just…don't ask."

Blaise looked at him for a moment, but then gave a sharp nod and turned back to the rest of the group, where Theo was taking his turn grovelling.

"Blaise noticed, didn't he?" Harry asked in a low voice.

"They've all noticed. They just aren't asking because they don't want to make you angry again," Draco replied quietly. "I told him all of Knockturn's having a rough time, so don't worry. And don't bother with table manners, just eat before you collapse."

Harry shot him a weak smile as they all headed for the kitchen.

"So, Harry," Pansy asked between bites of roast mutton, "how did you end up living in the roughest district in Britain?"

Harry cut off a slightly too large piece of meat and stuffed it in his mouth. Pansy suppressed a shudder. "I ran away," he said with a shrug. "When I was young. My parents are gone, dead or abandoned me, so there was no one to miss me when I left."

"But how did you end up in Knockturn?" Theo pressed.

Harry shot him a look. "I was trying to get to Diagon, but I had a Floo accident and came out in Borgin and Burke's. Then I got lost and had the good fortune to run into one of probably a handful of people there that would protect me, a blind man named Johnson. I've hardly left the district since."

He took a long drink while Draco's friends exchanged looks, then expertly steered the conversation away from him by asking about what NEWTs they were taking.

"Harry! You want a drink?" Blaise called after dinner.

"Can't," Harry grinned. "I have work tomorrow."

"What do you do?" Theo asked.

"I do a little stock work for Borgin," Harry replied. "Not much, but it's money."

"Do you really?" Draco asked in his ear when everyone was distracted.

"For about two weeks now," Harry answered softly. "I didn't want to risk having a real job before, but I need it. I come in a few hours a week and handle the worst things he gets, and he slips me some gold under the table. Nothing official, nothing that can be tracked. Works for both of us."

"Stay here tonight," Draco whispered. "Stay with me."

"Draco," Harry sighed. "I can't. I shouldn't."

"Please."

"…Alright."

-0-

Harry knew he wasn't in his own bed before he opened his eyes. It was soft here, for one thing, and warm for another. Quiet breaths puffed gently against the side of his face.

Draco looked so soft and innocent when he slept. He didn't sneer or smirk, or pucker his forehead in confusion, which was the expression he normally wore around Harry. Fine white hair lay across his face.

He really was gorgeous, definitely the best-looking man Harry had ever seen.

He sighed and moved Draco's wayward hand off his stomach to get up. Locating his Converse, he sat on the edge of the bed to pull them on.

"What time is it?" Draco mumbled, his voice full of sleep.

"Dunno," Harry replied, refreshing the disguising charm on his tattoos. "Time for me to go. The hundred?"

Draco handed over a bag full of gold. "I'll have the food in your flat by this evening," he promised.

"Thanks," Harry muttered.

Draco sat up partway and caught his hand as he turned to leave. "Harry…"

Harry slipped his hand free. "I'll see you later, Draco."

He shut the bedroom door soundlessly behind him and slipped out of the flat unnoticed.

-0-

"Is this another invitation?"

"No, I just wanted to see you," Draco replied, sitting in his usual spot on Harry's couch.

Harry passed a hand across his face. "You can't keep doing this, Draco."

Draco frowned. "Doing what?"

"This!" Harry gestured to him on the couch, take-out from Muggle London in his hands. "This…getting attached to me." He hesitated. "Falling in love."

"And why not?" Draco demanded. "Why do _you_ get to tell me what _I_ feel?"

"Draco…" Harry dropped into his chair and buried his face in his hands. "It would be so easy to love you," he whispered, "but I can't."

"Why?" He tried to reach for Harry, but the other teen drew back and Draco let his hand fall between them. "What's so wrong with it?"

"I'm a rent boy," Harry said bluntly. "A _whore_. I couldn't keep doing that if I was with you, it would be wrong. But I can't give it up either, I don't have any skills to get a job. And I won't be kept, like a pretty pet."

"Harry-"

"You shouldn't come around here anymore." Harry met his eyes, his face closed off. "There's only a few weeks until you go back to school. Focus on getting your NEWTs and making your family proud, not on trying to help some street corner hooker."

"I'm not going to forget you," Draco promised. His throat felt thick at the idea of leaving Harry Potter behind, never seeing him again.

"I'm not telling you to," Harry replied. "Just don't look for me anym-"

He was interrupted by a small grey owl hitting his window. As Draco watched, his expression went from guarded to surprised to panicked, and he rushed to open it. The owl's letter leapt off its leg and folded itself into the shape of a mouth, which whispered in Harry's ear. Harry went white.

"Leave. Now," he urged when it was finished. He burned the letter.

"What? Why?" Draco stood, heartbreak forgotten.

"The Ministry found me," Harry said in a rush, scrambling for his worn boots and pulling on a black hoodie that hid his tattoos. "Johnson works with the Ministry owls, the tip was from him. They're coming for me." He turned to Draco and started shoving him out the door. "Leave, please. Don't be found here."

"Harry." He gripped the tattooed boy's face in his hands and kissed him, hard and fast. "I'll find you again," he promised, just before he turned on his heel and Apparated away.


	4. Captivity

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his chair back on two legs, propping dirty boots on the clean table of the DMLE interrogation room. The Auror across the room glared at him.

"Harry Potter, a dirty whore," the man growled. Harry knew exactly why he was so angry. This guy had propositioned him several times, but Harry always turned him down. He didn't do submission, and Aurors always wanted power over someone.

"No one's called me that in years," he mused cheerfully, refusing to rise to the bait.

"I know exactly what they call you, _Ink_," the Auror sneered.

"Oh, have we met?" Harry asked brightly. He wasn't stupid, he knew their conversation was being recorded. "You know, I thought you looked familiar."

"Shut up!" The Auror roared, slamming his fist on the table. "I'd never touch someone as filthy as you!"

"Funny," Harry smirked, "that's not what you said any of the four times you tried to buy my services. Tell me, Auror, what is it about me that makes you want to hold me down by the throat and fuck me?" He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. "Is it because you look at me and see someone worthless, some Dark punk who you can take out your anger at your failed cases on?"

The Auror roared wordlessly and raised a hand to strike him when the door opened.

"_That is enough!"_

Harry recognised the speaker as Head Auror Scrimgeour, and the other two men as Minister Fudge and Albus Dumbledore.

"Auror Wilson, you are relieved," Scrimgeour snapped. The Auror left with his head hanging down and flushed with anger.

"Harry, my dear boy," Dumbledore said sadly, eyes twinkling.

"Hello, Headmaster," he smiled mockingly. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

-0-

"Merlin's fucking balls!" Blaise screeched, nearly falling off his chair as he looked at the headline of the Daily Prophet. Draco swore as he slopped hot coffee down his shirt.

"Was that really necessary?" he drawled.

"Yes it was." Blaise threw the paper at him. "Look." Draco looked.

BOY-WHO-LIVED FOUND: POTTER LIVING AS KNOCKTURN RENT BOY

"Fucking hell," he growled. The article was full of scandal and shock, talking about the downfall of a young wizard so full of promise into a sordid life of sex and drugs.

And there was a picture.

"Harry," Blaise said incredulously. He turned wide eyes on Draco. "You knew, didn't you?" Draco looked away. "How could you not say anything?! How did you even find him?!"

"He was just…doing his job," Draco winced. "It was completely by chance."

"You…hired…Harry Potter," Blaise said slowly. "You bought a fucktoy, and you dressed him up and paraded him around like someone halfway respectable. Fucking shit, Draco, what the hell is wrong with you? You should have just brought him as a whore and let the rest of us have a go."

"Don't talk about him like that!" Draco snarled, gripping Blaise by the collar.

A cold smirk spread across Blaise's face. "Oh, you like him, that's why. Poor Draco fell in love with a whore, who can't love him back. You tried to save him, didn't you? The dirty slut didn't want to be saved, did he? He _likes_ being used."

Shouting and banging on the door told them Pansy and Theo were here, and Draco let go of Blaise.

"Shut up," he hissed.

"You're on your own, Malfoy," Blaise shot back, still smirking as he straighten his collar.

-0-

"How could you do this to us, Potter?" Ron Weasley demanded. Harry ignored him, sketching roses on the walls of his Ministry cell with a piece of charcoal a nice guard had brought him. "How could you do that to my family?"

"What…exactly…did I do to _you_?" he asked slowly.

"You left!" Ron shouted. "You let us take the blame! The family that lost Harry Potter!"

Harry let his hand fall to his side and rolled off the little cot. He stalked toward the bars, speaking in a low, dangerous voice. "You do realise I didn't get lost on purpose, right? That I got shoved through a Floo on my own and came out in the wrong place? Your parents were so proud to have Harry Potter over for the summer, but they didn't bother to make sure I was alright. You and your brothers all saw the prison door on my room. You saw that they were starving me. You ripped the bars off my window yourselves," he gripped the bars tightly and watched with dark amusement as Ron stepped back quickly, "and you have the audacity to blame me?"

"Harry, stop this nonsense," Dumbledore scolded, coming near.

Harry scowled and gave the Headmaster a mocking bow. "Albus Dumbledore, an honour to have your esteemed presence visit my lowly captivity."

"Oh Harry," Dumbledore shook his head, giving him a disappointed expression. "Where did it all go wrong?"

"Ah, the million Galleon question. Where _did_ it go wrong, sir?" Harry returned to his cot and slouched against the wall. "Maybe it was when I ran out of money and first let a dealer fuck me for a hit? Maybe earlier, when I first smoked wizard salts? Or how about when I took a wrong turn out of Borgin and Burke's and got lost in Knockturn?" He leaned his elbows on his knees and fixed the old man with a flat glare. "No, how about at the very beginning? I think it all went wrong on November 1st, 1981, when I was left on the doorstep of a family that sincerely wished they could kill me. Starving was the least of my concerns there, sir."

"Harry, I'm sure your relatives are lovely people," Dumbledore said unconcernedly. "You shouldn't tell such lies about your family."

"I told no lies!" Harry felt his always-tenuous control over his magic slip, and the basin in the corner shattered into dust. "They are not my family!" He turned to Ron. "You were never my family either. So sorry you didn't get your fame and recognition for taking in poor orphaned Harry Potter," he sneered.

"You filthy whore!"

Harry picked up his charcoal again. "I'm tired. Please leave." He turned back to his rose, examining the outer-most petal critically. He rubbed out the edge and redrew it. If he perfected the design, he might get it tattooed on his chest.

-0-

"You should visit him."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Draco grouched, draped upside down over the ottoman, hair brushing the floor.

"Potter. Harry." Blaise waved a hand, not looking up from his Charms summer essay. "Go see him."

Draco scoffed. "Do you really think the Ministry would let me in? Not a chance."

"Get your father to get you in," Blaise said breezily. "Tell him you want to gloat or some shit. He'll be all proud and…smirk-y." Draco snorted.

"He told me not to come around anymore," he sighed. "Said I shouldn't fall in love with a rent boy."

"Not bad advice," Blaise muttered. Draco shot him an inverted glare and he sighed. "Yeah, but that was before he got caught, right? There's no way he can go back to that now. Talk to him. Be the person the Ministry trusts him with when they eventually let him go."

Draco sat up, blood rushing away from his head. "You think that would work?"

"It will if you try it and quit fucking sulking," Blaise said flatly. Draco rolled his eyes and flopped back down on the ottoman, already making plans to speak with his father.

-0-

"Looks fantastic, Harry."

Harry tossed a grin over his shoulder at his favourite friendly guard, Auror Green. Green had brought him the charcoal, and later paints, to keep away the boredom. He had been very impressed by Harry's skill, as had Harry, and wanted him to design a tattoo for him based on the shield of the Auror Corps.

Harry had covered one wall with his ideas. In the center was his final design. Two crossed wands over a blank scarlet shield made up the main part. Showers of green sparks fell from the tip of each wand, and ivy wrapped over and around all of it.

"I think it's done," he said, stepping back. "Look good to you?"

"Looks perfect," Green smiled. "Got any suggestions on who I should go to?"

Harry washed the paint off his hands in his replaced basin, thinking. "I reckon you want someone legal, yeah?" Green chuckled. "Go to Skulls & Scars, near the entrance to Knockturn, and ask for Stefan. He's expensive but totally legal. He'll be pleased I sent you."

"Did he do yours?" Green asked curiously.

Harry nodded, dropping onto his cot. "Yeah, he's fantastic, let me do my own designs and everything. He'll take good care of you."

"Thanks." With a quick visual duplication charm, Green copied the image from the wall onto a sheet of parchment and slid it into his pocket. "Oh, you've got another visitor. A boy from Hogwarts."

"Oh? Another?" Harry arched a pierced eyebrow. "Who?"

"Did you honestly forget me, Potter?" a wonderfully familiar, aristocratic voice said, drawing nearer.

Harry broke into a huge smile, rushing for the bars. He needed to get as close to that voice as possible. "Hello, Gorgeous," he called.

Draco smiled back, taking Harry's reaching hand in his. "Miss me?"

"Course not," Harry scoffed. "You?"

"I was quite relieved to be rid of your inked up mug," Draco grinned, pressing Harry's knuckles against his lips. Green watched on with an amused, fond smile as they both sunk down to sit on the floor, fingers linked.

"How badly did the papers write it?" Harry finally asked.

Draco frowned. "You were right. The downfall of the great Harry Potter, sullied forever by the filth of Knockturn Alley. They interview Dumbledore and the Weasley family."

Harry hummed. "They've been visiting me. Ron blames me for making his family look bad, never mind that they did that all themselves. Dumbledore's been giving me the sad-and-disappointed act. It's so pathetic." He rolled his eyes.

"You are heartless," Draco laughed. He pressed Harry's hand to his mouth again. "How are you?"

"Bored." Harry gestured to the covered walls of his little cell. "See? Green brought me the paint and charcoal. I did a design for him."

Draco let out a whistle. "Wow." He looked back at Harry. "Have you considered being a tattoo artist? You designed yours, right?"

"Yeah." Harry frowned at the floor. "You think I could?"

"I know you could." Draco raised his chin with a finger, stroked his cheek. "Are you eating well?"

"I'm eating _something_," Harry grumbled. "I'm not sure it's food, but it stays down. Stop worrying about me, you know the Ministry is too kind to let me die in here."

"What do you think will happen?" Draco asked, worry in his eyes. Harry reached out to cup his face.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I don't think they'll put me in prison. Not Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, especially if I get a hold of Rita Skeeter for an exclusive interview. They can't fine me, because I have no money. Maybe probation: have to live with someone Ministry-approved, check in with an Auror, get a real job."

Draco hummed, leaning into Harry's hand. He traced the silhouetted ravens on Harry's neck with gentle fingertips, each enjoying their closeness after their worlds had been turned inside out so suddenly.

"Mr Malfoy," Auror Green called kindly, "it's time to go." His mouth twisted ruefully. "I'm sorry. Ministry regulations."

"I understand," Draco said, rising. Harry went with him, still holding onto his hand tightly.

"Draco," he said, soft and full of emotion. "Thank you for coming."

Draco pressed his forehead to Harry's, as close as they could get with the bars in between them. "I promised I'd find you again," he whispered.

-0-

"Draco, what…exactly…do you think you are doing, associating with Potter?"

Draco glared at his godfather. What right did Severus Snape have to tell him who to associate with? Because he made such great decisions of his own in the past. "I'm helping a friend."

Severus pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "And how long have you and Potter been…_friends_?" he asked, sounding pained.

"Since just after school let out. What do you want, Severus?" he asked bluntly.

"Has it occurred to you that being Potter's…friend…will not help you politically?" Severus sneered.

"Has it occurred to you that don't care?" Draco shot back, crossing his arms obstinately. "Meeting Harry taught me more than Father ever did. I never wanted to do what Father does, corrupting politicians for a living. I just didn't know that I could go after what I wanted."

"And what is it that you want?" Severus asked carefully.

Draco shrugged. "To be in control of my life," he answered. "Cursebreaking has always sounded interesting. I could easily work for Gringotts with NEWTs in Arithmany and Ancient Runes."

"You could do that without being connected to Potter," Severus pointed out.

"And that would be a very dull, lonely life," Draco snapped. "If you have nothing to say, I shall take my leave. Good day, Severus." He spun on his heel and left his godfather in the Manor library.

-0-

Harry rolled his neck, hearing the joints of his spine crackle and pop. It had been far too long of a day, and all of it spent standing in the docket. He figured not providing a chair was part of the Ministry's punishment.

He tuned out his attorney's closing statement, scanning the upper decks of spectators. He spotted a flash of pale hair shifting in the back and smiled faintly.

"Mr Potter." Harry returned his attention to the acting-Mugwump of the Wizengamot. Dumbledore had been removed for his impartiality, since apparently he was Harry's guardian in the magical world. Harry had laughed when he heard. Didn't he do a great job of it, too?

"This court has reached its decision," the acting-Mugwump said. Harry straightened up and tried to look attentive. "You are found guilty of solicitation. Because of your minor status for a…large majority of the counts, you will not serve a prison sentence. You will also not be fined, because of your current financial status.

"You will be placed on probation for two years. An Auror will be assigned as your probationary officer, with whom you will conduct monthly check-ins. Should you break your probationary restrictions, you will be brought back before this court and your sentenced reassessed.

"Futhermore, you will complete your education at Hogwarts, beginning with this academic year. You will be treated as a late-entry student, tested for your proper academic level, and Sorted again. You are required to complete at least one year of schooling, regardless of the results of your tests.

"This court wishes you the best of luck in your new life. Court adjourned."

Wild whispering broke out all over the courtroom, but Harry ignored it. He sought out that pale hair hiding in the back. Piercing green eyes met liquid mercury grey, and both boys broke into wide smiles.


	5. Hogwarts

Draco rolled over as the door to his bedroom creaked open.

"Harry?"

"Yeah." Harry sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you mind?"

"C'mere." Draco tugged on his arm, and Harry slid under the covers to join him. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know how to live like this anymore," Harry laughed weakly. "Isn't that insane? I've forgotten how to live with respectable people. It's going to be awful at school."

Draco pulled Harry against his chest. He knew he wasn't comfortable staying in the Manor, but Minister Fudge had approved Lucius' request, made begrudgingly on behalf of his son, so there wasn't anywhere else he could go. He knew Harry felt ridiculously out of place around priceless knickknacks and fine furniture, and frankly he looked it. Narcissa's mouth went pinched every time she saw Harry, her eyes lingering on his tattoos and piercings. Lucius always looked like he'd swallowed something distasteful, but was too polite to let it show.

"It'll be alright at Hogwarts," Draco murmured. "You'll be in Slytherin this time, of course."

He felt Harry grin against his shoulder. "I suppose I have developed a talent for self-preservation and cunning, haven't I?"

"We'll take the dungeons by storm," Draco promised. "If any of those posh gits say anything, we'll tell them to get stuffed." Harry laughed briefly.

"I was right, you know," he said after a moment.

"About what?" Draco asked.

"It is ridiculously easy to love you."

Draco propped himself up on an elbow, staring down at Harry in the faint moonlight. "I thought you said a whore couldn't fall in love."

"Not a whore anymore," Harry pointed out. "I'm all reformed now, and I. Love. You," he breathed, hooking a hand behind Draco's neck and pulling him in for a long, lingering kiss.

"Yeah," Draco said softly when they broke apart, "definitely taking the dungeons by storm."

-0-

Harry woke to a hard body against his back and a hot tongue sliding along the shell of his ear. He hummed and tilted his head back a little. "Is this how you wake everyone up?" Draco chuckled, his warm breath tickling the wet skin of Harry's ear. "What are you doing?"

"Counting," Draco murmured.

Harry laughed. "Eight, now hurry up, I have to go get gawked at in public." He pried Draco's arm off his stomach and tried to sit.

"Ruin my fun," Draco muttered, letting him up. He leaned back on his elbows, openly leering at Harry as he stretched.

"See something interesting?" Harry asked, tossing the blond and slow, burning smile as he hooked his thumbs in his pyjama pants, already barely hanging onto his hips, and inched them lower. Draco's eyes went dark. "I'm going to take a shower, meet you down there for breakfast." He laughed again as he shut the door, cutting off Draco's frustrated groan.

People did more than stare in Diagon Alley; they pointed and talked and shouted at him. They called him a whore and a slut, they wanted his autograph or to take his picture, they wanted to ask him, no, _demand_ he tell them, why he left.

Harry just wanted to curse them all and disappear back into Knockturn. Fuck, these people made him want to go back to drinking.

Though, on the upside, apparently all he needed to do to get Narcissa Malfoy on his side was confess he had no clue about current fashions and allow her to pick out his whole wardrobe.

"Exhausted yet?" Draco smirked, slipping through the curtain.

Harry shot him a look, stripping off his twenty-eighth shirt that day. "Is she always like this?" He tossed the shirt at Draco, accepting the next pile in return.

"With shopping?" He knocked Harry's hands out of the way and did up the buttons himself. "Always." He smoothed the lines of the emerald green silk. "You're getting this."

Harry scowled. "I defer to you, oh emperor of style," he said with an obsequious bow. "Now get out and let me be tortured in peace."

His feet slowed as they drew near Gringotts. He could see the shadowed archway that divided the upstanding morals of Diagon from the down and dirty lives in Knockturn.

"Harry?" Draco asked gently, jerked to a stop by Harry's hand.

"I want to go home," Harry said quietly. Draco's arm wrapped around him. "_I want to go home_," he repeated into the blond's chest.

"It's going to be alright," Draco said into his hair. "Let's go visit that tattoo artist friend of yours. My parents can handle the bank on their own."

Skulls & Scars was like a second home to Harry. It was smoky and dimly lit in the main lobby, with flash on the blood-red silk walls. On one of the doors to the private rooms was a framed picture of the tattoo on Harry's back, a panther and a raven.

"My favourite customer!" A Spanish man came out of the staff lounge, opening his arms wide.

"Stefan!" Harry hugged the man back. "This is new," he remarked, holding up one of Stefan's hands, which was now decorated along the wrist with cherry blossoms.

"Two months ago," Stefan said proudly. His face turned serious. "Young Hadrian, I heard what happened." He gripped Harry's shoulders tightly. "You have always been like a son to me. You will be welcome in my shop, as a customer, or," his face broke into a proud smile, "as an artist!"

"What?" Harry asked, slightly stunned.

Stefan winked conspiratorially. "Your Auror Green was in last week. Great design, very nice detail, very good. Finish school, and I hire you on the spot!" He winked again.

Harry turned when he heard Draco laugh, jaw still hanging open. "Told you, Harry," he chuckled. He closed Harry's jaw with a finger and gave him a kiss.

-0-

"I still can't fucking believe you," Theo growled as the new first years were Sorted.

"A fact you have not stopped reminding me of since it came out in the papers," Draco replied, all but ignoring him. "Now shut up, Harry's about to go."

Dumbledore stood to address the Great Hall. "As I am sure you all know, this year we welcome back to Hogwarts one of her lost sheep, Mr Harry Potter. Because of his…unusual circumstances, he will be the first Hogwarts student to be resorted. Mr Potter, if you would."

Harry strode out of the shadows in the back of the Hall and moved down the wide aisle in something that was part self-assured saunter, part hunting cat prowl, and all sex. Older students all over the Hall blushed and shifted in their seats as his piercing gaze swept across them. It paused on Draco, and he winked.

"Also, due to his interrupted education, Mr Potter has been undergoing a series of theoretical and practical exams in the last week, in order to place him in an appropriate academic year. I am proud to announce that he has performed in an exemplary fashion, and will be able to sit his NEWTs at the end of the year with his yearmates. All that remains is to see which House he will make proud."

Harry grinned at the Hall in general and slipped the Sorting Hat onto his head. The whole student body leaned forward, waiting breathlessly for the final decision. Draco saw him break out into a wide smile just before the Hat screamed "SLYTHERIN!"

The look of absolute rage on Severus' face was hilarious, as was the outrage on McGonagall's when he sat down at the Slytherin table and leaned into Draco's side.

-0-

"Mr Potter, you were placed in this class for a reason. Surely you can manage to Transfigure a mouse into a vole without undue difficulty," McGonagall snapped.

Harry nearly snapped back. "I was placed into this class because I can do semi-permanent human Transfiguration, Professor, not because I am an expert at turning one useless rodent into another," he replied tightly. McGonagall's lips compressed into a thin line.

"If you have the power to perform human Transfiguration, simple changes among a single family should not pose a problem to you, then," she said.

Harry glared at her. "I have the power, yes, but I have difficulty with my control." She raised a single thin brow, and he sighed. "I have an unstable magical core, and it tends to defy control under stress, such as having just come from a double Potions lesson with a man that would much rather have seen me dead in a gutter years ago and would dearly love to tell me to my face. Ma'am."

"You did not have an unstable core six years ago," she pointed out, like nothing had changed. She always treated him like that, and it made him burn.

"Repeated heroin usage will do that to a person," he remarked, deadpan. "Ma'am," he added, after a pause.

She frowned at him, but swept away without another word.

"Seriously, Harry?" Theo leaned over and whispered. Harry shot him a look. "Right, yeah, sorry. And about Snape, too."

"What are you apologising about Snape for?" Harry raised an eyebrow. "_He's_ the heartless bastard. Though if you have any idea why, I'd love to know. He does know I never wanted to come back and see him again, right?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure he does." Theo scratched at his eyebrow with his wand. Harry half hoped he'd accidently burn it off, but no such luck. "He was in the same year as your parents, I think. No offense, but James Potter was an arse."

"Nobody's a saint in real life," Harry shrugged. "So he hates me because my father, a man I am nothing like and never got to know since he was killed before I was _two_, bullied him in school?"

"Merlin, it does sound like a shit deal when you put it like that," Theo muttered. Harry nodded exaggeratedly. "It doesn't make him any better than James Potter, does it?"

"No, but he's never going to see that. He's too obsessed with hating me."

"Rotten luck, mate," Theo slapped his shoulder bracingly. "At least it's only for a year, right?"

"Yeah," Harry sighed, gathering up his books as the bell rang. "I'm going to skip out on dinner tonight. If Draco asks, I need some time to get under control again."

Theo nodded, and Harry took off down the hall in the other direction. There was a room on the seventh floor that only appeared when someone was in need. For Harry, it was a huge empty chamber with white walls, a single desk with inks and a sheaf of parchment.

He stepped into the room, feeling his cool focus coming back to him already. Half the far wall was taken up by his latest design, the next tattoo he wanted to get and his first in colour. It was a silver-grey rose on a black thorny stem. Around it wrapped a Chinese dragon design, a solid deep green.

He spent four hours just on linework that night, but by the time he was finished, the tiny tremors in his hands had finally stopped.

Unfortunately, that meant he was out after curfew. He cursed mentally as he saw Snape patrolling the halls. He needed to find out what had happened to his father's invisibility cloak. Ron had kept it, probably.

"Disregarding the rules already, Potter?" Snape sneered. "You haven't changed as much in six years as everyone thinks. You are more like your father every day."

Done with taking shit from Snape's outdated prejudice, Harry raised his chin and met Snape's black eyes. "How so, sir? I remember nothing of my father, you understand, whereas you knew him in school. Would you mind telling me about him, sir?"

"James Potter was a spoiled brat who thought himself above authority, simply because he had money and some skill on a broom," the Potions Master snapped. "His attitude was obviously genetic, considering your own behaviour."

Harry put on an innocent, confused expression. "I'm sorry sir, but did…did you live under a rock this summer? You know, when the Ministry dragged me kicking and screaming out of a life of poverty in Knockturn." He dropped the innocent act, openly sneering at Snape. "Maybe if you pulled your head out of your own school days, you'd notice that I _never_ _wanted_ _to_ _come_ _back_ _here_. The mere fact that I'm in your House makes me an entirely different person than James Potter, who, by the way, has been _dead_ for sixteen years!"

Snape stared at him in shock, but Harry just stepped past him. "I'll be down at your office at eight tomorrow night for detention," he said over his shoulder.

-0-

"And Granger! Don't get me started on Granger! Always trying to stick her fingers through the ceiling of every classroom, just because she thinks she should be the only one to ever answer a-"

"Shut up!" Harry hissed as he slapped a hand across Draco's mouth. Draco gave him an affronted look, but Harry just shook his head. "_Accio_ _Potter Invisibility Cloak!"_

There was a soft rushing sound as a pile of silvery fabric flew at them, tangling mostly around Draco. Weasley and Granger appeared near the wall behind them, looking shocked.

"What the hell was that, Potter?" Weasley shouted, already turning red.

"That was me taking back one of my possessions after far too long," Harry replied easily. The smirk on his face made Draco proud.

"You left it behind when he ran away! It's mine now!"

"I think not," Harry said. "This is a powerful magical artefact entailed to the Potter line and left to me by my father. Ten generations of Potters have handed down this cloak from father to son, and the Peverells before them. It will never belong to a money-grubbing pig like you," he spat. "Hermione, I'm surprised you never bothered to find out its history, since it's more powerful than any other invisibility cloak in history."

"You're a cheater," Granger informed him primly. Draco went for his wand, meaning to hex the superior look right off her face, but Harry laid a hand on his chest.

"How so?" he asked coolly.

"You shouldn't be in seventh year. There's no way you could have learned everything we have in school while you were begging in Knockturn." Her face screwed up in disgust, like even the name of the district tasted foul in her mouth. "You must have cheated on your exams."

"According to you then, I should be at the level of a second year," he said for clarification. She nodded. "Well then, tell me how someone who only knows the most basic of spells managed to bewitch Albus Dumbledore and a series of Ministry officials into giving me higher exam scores." Granger's mouth dropped open, flapping silently. Draco smirked when Harry added, "Go on, I'm waiting."

"You paid them off!" Weasley shouted triumphantly. Draco rolled his eyes. Was he really so stupid?

Harry threw his head back and laughed. "With what money?" he asked incredulously. "I wasted that money years ago!" Weasley looked gobsmacked. "You want my medical records as proof? Illegal substances are illegal for a reason, you know, they do serious damage. Look if you don't believe me." He rolled up his sleeves over his elbows and thrust his inner arms under their noses.

Craning forward a bit, Draco could see the red-purple scar tissue of old track marks where he'd injected the drugs into his system. They made him feel faintly sick.

"Heroin or cocaine in solution," Harry was saying. "You might want to get Hermione to explain to you what those are, though I bet you recognise the names 'fire salt' and 'VizPo.' I got into those, too."

"VizPo?" Granger asked, annoyed, as Harry unrolled his sleeves and buttoned the cuffs again.

"Visionary Potion, it makes people hallucinate," Weasley waved her question away. "It's ridiculously illegal, too."

"Just because you're close-minded and simple enough to think you can only learn from books and teachers doesn't make it true," Harry remarked carelessly. "I learned more than the library could ever tell you on the streets, just trying to stay alive." He wove his fingers into Draco's and tugged him forward. "Leave them to their newly-altered worldviews, Draco."

Draco tossed a smirk over his shoulder as they left.

-0-

"Whore!"

"Faggot!"

"Filthy slut!"

Circe, it was so hard to keep a hold on his magic while they were beating him. Fucking bastards, they jumped him on his way back from the room on the seventh floor, disarming and immobilising him.

Another fist struck him in the ribs. "You're nothing but dirt, Potter," a boy younger than him growled in his ear. "You don't deserve to be here, around decent people."

His magic shuddering inside him. It felt like it was beating his ribs black and blue on the inside from trying to get out. Why didn't he just let it go?

It shuddered again. Oh, right, because they'd be scraping his attackers off the stone walls. Fucking unstable magic.

"Strip him," the ring-leader, a sixth year, ordered. "Let's see if he picked up any skills in Knockturn." Someone vanished his clothes, and he felt the ring-leader run a broom-callused hand down along his spine. "This is all you wanted, isn't it Potter?" he said, disgustingly sweet. "Someone to put you on your knees and force a cock into you."

Harry could barely focus. His mind was spinning with hazy, fractured memories from his days in the drug dens. All the times the dealers had forced him down in exchange for another hit, the way they had slapped him across the face and taken him unprepared, grinning like Satan every time he screamed in pain.

The broom-callused hand gripped his hip tight, and Harry lost control. He screamed as his magic rushed away from him, mixing with the screams of his attackers. He couldn't look, he didn't want to hear, he wouldn't feel. He just pressed his forehead to the cold stone floor and screamed and screamed until his throat was raw and bloody.

-0-

"I refuse to indulge Potter's constant need for attention."

"I don't give a shit!" Draco shouted at his godfather. "Do it anyway!"

"Why should I help him?" Severus sneered.

"Because that's what you're paid to do!" Draco nearly screamed. "He's locked himself in his mind, you need to get him out."

"He is clearly faking." Severus crossed his arms. "He's trying to avoid blame for attacking those four Gryffindors."

"So why is he the one stripped naked and beaten to a pulp?" Draco growled. "Just get over yourself and fucking do it!"

"Fine," Severus snarled. "Put him on the couch."

With a scowl on his face, the Potions Master pointed his wand at Harry's forehead and murmured "Legilimens."

Draco paced, watching closely. Severus's face went from scowling to annoyed, though surprised. After a moment, that gave way to a shock that only grew as time went on, and Severus began to grow pale.

Severus tore his eyes away with a gasp, breathing hard. "Merlin, what have you done to your mind, boy?" he murmured softly.

"Will he be alright?" Draco burst out desperately. "When will he wake up?"

"He is only sleeping now," Severus assured him. "He was having…a flashback, as I believe those versed in Mind Healing call it. His mind was focusing on a series of painful memories from his past and not allowing him to focus on the present."

"So he'll be ok now?"

"As much as he has ever been," Severus replied. "Many of the memories I saw were distorted by his drug usage, and what I did see clearly was…disturbing, to say the least. I must apologise to Mr Potter when he wakes," he added very softly.

-0-

Harry woke slowly to an aching pain over his body. His throat was sore and scratchy, and his ribs jolted with pain when he took a breath.

"Draco?" he croaked out.

"Here," said a voice in his ear. Draco lay beside him in the bed, very carefully not touching him. "How do you feel?"

"Like the castle landed on me," Harry answered honestly. "What happened to…them?"

"Burned and a little bloody, but all in all not nearly as bad off as they deserve," Draco replied through gritted teeth.

Harry rolled over gingerly, so as not to jostle his ribs, and curled carefully around Draco's frame. "It's better this way. I could have killed them on accident."

"You should have," Draco muttered.

"And if I had, the Ministry would have killed me," Harry replied. "I have to be careful, I'm on probation, remember?"

"Alright," Draco sighed. "Do you need anything?"

"A pain potion."

Draco summoned a potion, which Harry eagerly swallowed. "Anything else?"

"For you to stay here with me." Harry's voice was casual, but there was a forced tone to it that he couldn't quite get rid of, and he knew Draco could feel how tightly Harry's hands clutched at him.

He pressed his lips to Harry's scar, brushing the hair out of his eyes. "Of course," he murmured. He smoothed a hand gently across an unbruised portion of his neck. "I love you, Harry."

"I love you too," Harry said, his face pressed against Draco's shoulder. "Now shut up so I can sleep again."

-0-

Draco hugged his mother excitedly when the ceremony was over. He turned to his father, already offering his hand, but, to his surprise, Lucius grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug of his own.

"I am proud of, Draco," he said, smiling. "Graduating from Hogwarts with ten NEWTs. No matter what profession you pursue, know that I am proud of you."

"Thank you, Father," Draco said, trying not to get choked up and pretty much failing.

"Shall we go to dinner?" Narcissa asked.

"I- I want to speak to Harry first," Draco said, knowing his parents still didn't like Harry all that much. "To congratulate him and say goodbye and all that."

"Where is Mr Potter, anyway?" Lucius asked, scanning the crowd.

"He's with Auror Green. He's, er, the only one who came to see Harry."

"His probationary Auror?" Lucius asked, eyebrow cocked. Draco nodded. "Very well, go speak to your Mr Potter. Narcissa and I shall visit with Madame Zabini. I believe she in on husband number twelve now." He pursed his lips briefly as he led Narcissa away with a hand in the small of her back.

Draco whirled, dashing through the crowd to reach Harry, who stood awkwardly with Auror.

"Draco! Just the man I wanted to see!" Harry called, pulling him in by the hands and kissing him soundly. "Do you have a few minutes to say goodbye?"

"Yes, but then my parents want to take me out for dinner," Draco answered.

"Good," Harry purred in his ear, tugging him around the corner of the castle. "This way, _Gorgeous_."

Draco stumbled, his knees going weak when he heard the old nickname in Harry's husky voice. Harry pushed him into a hidden corner and cast a privacy ward before pressing Draco against the wall and dropping to his knees.

"Oh, fuck, Harry," Draco gasped, already hard and aching. Harry grinned evilly as he undid Draco's flies and exposed him to the warm June air for just a second before taking his cock in his mouth and swallowing him down.

Circe, it was just as good as he remembered. Draco groaned into the fist pressed against his mouth as Harry hummed around his cock, sliding down to swirl his tongue around the head before swallowing him down again. Draco's hips jerked as the head hit the back of Harry's throat.

"Ah, Harry, fuck- _oh!_" he cried as he came, Harry eagerly swallowing it all. "Fuck, I love you."

"I love you too," Harry murmured back, leaning his head against Draco's thigh. "Happy Graduation Day."

Draco laughed. "To the both of us."


	6. Epilogue

"Door, Stefan!" Harry shouted, just finishing up giving a client the last bit of aftercare instruction. He dispelled the sanitation charms on his hands and stepped out of his private room.

"Who is it?" Stefan shouted back from the staff room.

"Never mind, it's one of mine!" Harry called. "Hey Blaise."

"Hello, Harry," the Italian man answered, browsing the flash on the walls. "Is this all your work?"

"Nah, that's just flash. Standard designs every artist can do. This is my custom work." He plucked a binder off a shelf. "Looking for something in particular?"

"Not really, no," Blaise murmured, flipping through the pictures. "Just something…striking, you know? For here." He ran a finger around the top of his right arm, in the natural depression created by the two muscles there.

"Hm." Harry looked him over. "Well, I'm free right now. I can give you a consultation if you like."

Blaise flashed him a relieved grin. "That'd be great."

Harry led him back to his private studio, bringing the binder along with them. He directed Blaise to take off his shirt and sit on the chair. "Your skin's a bit dark for coloured ink," he noted. "You should stick to black, maybe some grey shading."

"I defer to your expertise, oh ink master," Blaise smirked.

Harry laughed. "As well you should. Now, something striking…what do you think about a tribal design? It's a Muggle concept, but I think it would work well." He conjured a quick glamour charm, laying an image of a quick concept idea over the skin on Blaise's arm.

Blaise inspected the solid black shapes thoughtfully, twisting his arm to and fro. He smiled. "I like it."

"Great," Harry grinned back. "Give me a few days to work up some sketches, and I'll get you an appointment to come back in for the real deal."

-0-

By the time the door slammed, Draco was putting dinner on the table. "How were the Muggles?" he called. Harry still worked in Muggle London on Thursdays, through his profession had changed. There was a shop in Camden Market where he did his tattoos by appointment.

"Stupidly uncreative today," Harry replied, coming into the kitchen and collapsing into his chair. He leaned up to kiss Draco as the blond set his plate down in front of him. "I don't even want to know how many butterfly tramp stamps and Chinese characters I've done in the past year."

"Poor thing," Draco teased. "You don't have to go there, you know."

"I know," Harry muttered carefully through a mouthful of linguini, "but tattoos are a subculture, and the subculture is a hell of a lot bigger in the Muggle world. That's where are the trends are." He took another bite of pasta. "How was your day?"

"Dull." Draco worked as an investment advisor at Gringotts. It wasn't exciting, but it was stable and paid well. Unlike Cursebreaker, his job also had the added benefit of keeping him in London.

Draco set the dishes in the sink, turning on the tap to fill it with warm water.

"Just leave those, Draco," Harry said, but Draco shook his head.

"It'll only take a few minutes."

Strong arms wrapped around his waist, and Draco automatically leaned back. "Leave them," Harry murmured. "I'll get them later." Draco turned off the water. "Good man," Harry breathed hotly into his ear. "C'mon, Gorgeous, let's go to bed."

Draco let Harry lead him through the flat to their bedroom, marvelling at how sex with Harry always seemed new and the way that nickname could still make his knees go weak, even ten years later.

Faster than he could follow, Draco found himself naked on their bed with Harry between his knees. He groaned as Harry peppered little kisses over his hips and the insides of his legs. He laved the flat of his tongue over the simple tattoo on his hip, one that matched Harry's: the rune for change, symbolic of the way their meeting had changed everything for the better between them.

"Stop teasing!" Draco growled, jerking his hips up. Harry chuckled darkly, but he obliged and took Draco's cock in his mouth, down to the base. Draco could feel slick fingers probing at his hole as Harry gave a strong suck. He pulled off to circle the tip with his tongue as he stretched and prepared Draco.

He pulled back entirely, removing his fingers from Draco's arse, and Draco whined with need. "Just hold on, Gorgeous," Harry purred. He lined his own erection up with Draco's fluttering hole and pressed forward slowly. Draco wrapped his legs around Harry's waist, forcing him to slide in faster.

It had been over a year since their meeting when they had first had sex, despite how much Harry enjoyed bringing Draco off, by hand or by mouth. Harry had serious problems with losing control over himself, left over from his experiences with his old dealers. So Draco had been patient and waited, and the result had been explosive.

"Draco," Harry groaned, shaking as he tried to hold himself still.

"_Move_," Draco whispered.

And Harry did. He pulled back and slammed back in, drawing a cry from Draco's throat. He kept going, adjusting the angle until Draco's back arched and his eyes flew open. "_Harry_! Oh fucking hell-"

Harry cut him off with a deep kiss, snapping his hips hard and fast until Draco broke off and screamed as his climax rolled over him, spraying release across both their chests. His muscles clamped down, and, after a couple more thrusts, Harry jerked forward and grunted. "Fuck, _Draco_…"

Exhausted and spelled clean, Draco lay with Harry curled around and over him, one finger gently tracing the Malfoy crest inked on the right side of his chest.

"I love you, Draco."

Draco kissed him softly. "I love you, too, Harry." He closed his eyes. "And I expect those dishes to be clean by breakfast."


End file.
